


3,141,592,654 views

by Idhren



Category: Maru Desu | I Am Maru
Genre: Gen, boxes we choose to live inside, feline dental hygiene, oda al maru, white of tooth and claw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 04:12:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idhren/pseuds/Idhren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maru works in mysterious ways.</p><p>So does the internet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3,141,592,654 views

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orbcitrine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orbcitrine/gifts).



> Many thanks to my supportive beta Kate Nepveu, who helped me unpack my thoughts about boxes, and to copperbadge and lim for the inspiration.

 

A large cardboard box sits in the middle of the room, waiting. Movement on the right — MARU appears and makes a beeline for the latest object of his affections. He circles around the box, then turns to face its top, tail beginning to swish with anticipation. Maru glances to the viewer.

 

* * *

 

The woman smiles down at her phone as the train rattles on, watching the tiny image of Maru turn back to his box, tail swishing faster. She forgets the press of other people in the way he lifts his right paw, bunches, bounds up like a furry cannonball, bottom neatly tucked to clear the box’s edge. She pauses _大きな箱とねこ2。-Big box and Maru 2.-_ as the train slows, glancing to check the station, then rewinds to watch Maru jump again, marveling at this most unlikely feline athlete arcing up and over in. She rewinds one more time.

 

* * *

 

Maru lands with a thump in one corner of the man’s laptop screen as he IRC chats in another. The man leaves the text cursor blinking in its box for a moment as he stretches back, thinking of just the right pun, then laughs as his own cat marches onto the keyboard, brushing his fluffy tail with emphasis under his person’s nose. “Yantoe! Hee hehe, Yantoe stop, Yantoe that _tickles_.” Yantoe ignores his person as he settles onto the keyboard, eyes intent on a slim grey form entering the room in the box of the YouTube video. “Oh, her? That’s Hana, Yantoe; Maru’s new friend.” The man absently begins to pet Yantoe, chat box forgotten, as they both watch Hana circle once, twice around the box.

 

* * *

 

Another brush of her fingers on the iPad, and the young woman pauses, scrolls back up her tumblr dashboard. A new Maru gif set! Or actually a new Hana one, aw. In the top left box, Hana endlessly circles a large cardboard box. In the top right gif, Hana stretches herself up up up to rest her front paws as far as she can reach against the cardboard box, and then drops down. (And stretches up up up again…) In the middle left gif, Hana sits, staring at the box, tail a perpetual motion machine of intent. In the middle right, she jumps! And fails. And jumps! And fails. (The young woman can sympathize.) In the bottom left, Hana is back to staring at the box. The bottom right, a single thick paw blinks whiteness teasingly over the top of the box and back, over the top of the box, and back, over the top of the box…

 

* * *

 

Hana leaps again! and the boy holds his breath, throat unexpectedly tight, curling around the bright box of his phone in the dark. The faint blue glow traces the many cardboard boxes surrounding his bed in various stages of packing. Hana falls back again as the woman in 4C begins to weep a counterpoint of bitter, wrenching sobs to her boyfriend’s indistinct angry accusations, and the boy hunches a little tighter over his phone. He is going to get out, he is going to get out, he is going to— oh! Maru has just jumped messily, imperfectly, gloriously out of the box, knocking it over as he flies. And suddenly the boy remembers to breathe.

 

* * *

 

The twins gurgle cheerfully as they watch Hana-on-the-TV investigate the knocked over box, while Maru takes a moment to recover his dignity by licking himself. The twins’ parents tease the day’s logistics into order _sotto voce_ over steaming mugs of coffee; their older sister whispers, “I call this game FUN-IN-A-BOX”, to her book, looks at twins Thing One and Thing Two, and dissolves into helpless laughter. Meanwhile, Hana creeps out of the box, ears perked with mischief. The twins clutch at each other with delight as Hana runs at Maru, and Maru stoically endures the impact of kitten one-fourth his size. Hana scampers away back to hide in the box. One of the twins reaches a clutching hand after her in protest—

 

* * *

 

On hundreds, thousands of screens Maru gets up, and pads over to sit next to the box, and twitch his tail deliberately into Hana’s line of view.

 

* * *

 

Hana’s paw darts out of the box, and matador-swift Maru pulls his tail away just in time. The twins’ sister puts down her book (“Would you like to shake hands /With Thing One and Thing Two?") and watches, entranced.

 

* * *

 

Hana’s paw retreats back into the box, and Maru keeps his tail paused out of the way a moment more. The boy in his room circles his body around them protectively, puffs knowingly at how slowly slowly Maru lays his tail back down.

 

* * *

 

The young woman laughs at the pair of macros. In the top picture, Maru’s tail lying across the mouth of the box is captioned ‘I Dares You’. In the bottom, Hana’s entire body is clutched triumphantly around Maru’s tail: ‘I Gots You!’

 

* * *

 

On the screen, Hana begins to gnaw at Maru’s tail as she pushes at it with her feet. Yantoe eyes his person’s fingers with sudden interest. “Oh, no you don’t,” the man says, and quickly smooshes his cat off his keyboard before Yantoe can try his paw at reenacting.

 

* * *

 

The woman gets off the train, watching Maru’s indignant body language as he attempts to walk off with Hana still attached to his tail. She glances up, and reluctantly slides the phone back into her bag, the image of Hana refusing to let go still playing as it slips out of sight.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere Maru is entering the room for the first time, finding a new box to fit himself into (again) for the first time; somewhere he is jumping imperfectly out of the box, knocking the whole thing over for Hana to explore. Somewhere Maru has finally tussled Hana off his tail, and is running out of the room, Hana hot on his tail, leaving the box fallen open. (Waiting.)

 

 

_At start, no has box. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz box? An box wuz. An Maru wuz also._


End file.
